Madonna modelled herself on a sexually unrestrained, powerful and de-sanitised version of Marilyn Monroe and rebelled against patriarchal Catholic constraints of the feminine, using the notion of wanton sexuality as her arsenal. Michael Jackson refused to be categorised according to race and gender and mixed these up in both theatrics and surgery, to much public speculation and psychoanalysis. Freddy Mercury was openly sexually promiscuous and gay and celebrated his choices with an engaging and charismatic physical vitality.

These are just some of the ground-breaking pop icons that Lady Gaga has modelled herself upon. She has said in interviews that her influences are rooted in the past and include singers (David Bowie), actors (Marlene Dietrich), artists (Picasso) and filmmakers (Hitchcock/Fellini).

The result is a hodgepodge that many outside of her fan base find difficult to attribute sense and meaning to.

But perhaps Gaga is an icon that is not meant to be understood or defined. Certainly she has done more to engage the world in a speculative debate about what she is than any of her predecessors who, though complex, were much easier to pigeonhole. Gaga, it seems, is indefinable.

Reading Gaga through the postmodern literary lens, as if engaging with an open-ended text, is perhaps one way to grasp the slippery Gaga phenomenon. Like a postmodern writer, she has borrowed from the stable that preceded her and has plagiarised, layered herself, and constructed a bricolage into the sculptural persona she has become and upon whom it is difficult to attach a singular interpretation.

Gaga is a metanarrative. There is an element of reflexive self-consciousness in all her spectacular public appearances. She has openly declared that she went back and looked at who was original, quirky, offbeat, different and then used all these influences to write herself. This has resulted in a multi-layered, mosaicked and exploded spectacle that cannot be categorised or contained in a definite critique.

While some attribute deep meaning to her persona others decry it as meaningless.

Drawing from theorist Roland Barthes’s text, “The death of the Author”, Lady Gaga reads like a text, which does not rely on deep meaning or lucidity. She becomes a “multi- dimensional space in which a variety of influences, none of them original, blend and clash”. She has set herself up as an “eternal copyist”, at once sublime and over the top and whose profound ridiculous dimensions of the spectacular indicates precisely the truth of any art form. The contemporary artist “can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original”.

One could easily believe that she has imbibed Barthes’s theory into her own assemblage — that the artist’s only power is to mix influences, “to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them”.

Gaga is a modern day Alice in Wonderland and she appeared on the scene as if she had just arrived through the looking glass.

Hers is a macro-text that makes use of borrowing, parodying, quoting and mimicking other art forms with an emphasis on pastiche, bricolage and intertextuality. The entire wonderland spectacle that she pieces together seems to be a bizarre pictorial play on various theories, including Dada, deconstruction, horror, body grotesque and monstrous feminine. Her use of the term “mother monster” is not unintentional.

Unlike other pop icons such as Britney Spears, she has not relied on overt sexual performance to up her street cred – neither does her sex appeal lie in the groin thrusting palpable sexuality of Madonna. It is more a kind of untouchable exhibition of the possibility of sexual adventure. It is there, both hidden and exposed, and definitely not to please the patriarchal view of a woman. Gaga is both self-contained and open. She plays with gender roles. Her sex appeal clearly speaks of a new form of sexuality that is not rooted in 20th century feminism – but in a contemporary androgyny that expresses self-pleasing rather than other pleasing.

Could it be then that Lady Gaga is indeed the first icon that resonates with a postmodern reality?

She is a postmodernist in every sense of the word. She has set herself apart from the 20th century modernists who try to uphold the idea that “works of art can provide the unity, coherence, and meaning that has been lost in most of modern life”.

As literary theorist Mary Klages points out, “postmodernism, in contrast, doesn’t lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality or incoherence, but rather celebrates that”. The motto here is: “The world is meaningless? Let’s not pretend that art can make meaning then, let’s just play with nonsense.” And this is what Gaga does in both her appearance and her music, which some have compared to nonsense nursery rhymes.

Gaga’s music, though described as bubblegum pop, is infused with deconstructive discourse and pulls apart the ethereal meaning that the public has attached to sanitised icons such as Lady Di (Lady Die) or a White Jesus (Black Jesus). So detractors of her music would do well to listen to her lyrics. Like Facebook memes which distribute radical feminist theory in easy pictorial quotes, perhaps bubblegum pop is the way to deliver a message that explodes and deconstructs societal hero-worshipping trends.

Whether this is her intention or not does not really matter. What matters more is that Lady Gaga is an open text – you can read her in any way you want. Who she is relies solely on the beholder’s interpretation of her. She is authored by her fans and she signifies the possibility of a futuristic cyber form of entertainment which relies more on computer-generated hype than flesh and blood.

Could it be then, that Lady Gaga is an avatar and not a human being – at least in the collective imaginary of her huge fan-base?

In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user’s alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in internet forums and other online communities. The thing about a computer avatar is that the author is the user. It is he/she that dresses the character, chooses the hair, the look, the colour and so on. The avatar becomes the perfect conduit for personal neurosis, dreams, desires and fantasies.

Gaga models herself, perhaps unwittingly, on what a collective avatar would look like. Her sculptural, varied and bizarre outfits feed into the collective psyche of multifarious alter egos allowing many to believe that they have some hand in her creation — that they are the authors.

As the first huge star of the digital age this goes some way to making sense of her. She dresses outlandishly, she makes scant commentary on media platforms, she avoids the paparazzi’s invasion of her private life and her stage appearances are massively electronic and impersonal.

She fulfils the conservative mainstream’s political expectations by not taking sides and writing off activism as irrelevant — yet she will support the LGBTI movement. She wears animal fur and remains unapologetic to the many fans who challenged her on this issue. She will speak against some human-rights abuses yet still ignore an appeal from Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel to boycott Israel.

Here in South Africa, she visited the Mara Primary School in Soweto, yet her security team prevented the children’s parents from entering the school — a bewildering and upsetting experience for the children and the parents.

All of this ambivalence suggests that she may not be human after all, but a cyber manifestation of the collective contradictory transferences and projections from the digital-savvy youth who have the power to create their own avatars in the endless cyber-fantasy world that is available nowadays.

Like a computer-generated avatar she changes her art, her definition, her outfits, her politics as if it is the collective imagination controlling her and not herself.

It is in the massive fan base and adulation she receives that we can be assured that she is fulfilling an archetypal notion that exists in the collective – and given the breakdown in meaning and logic of world events – it is a shattered mirror archetype indicative of a fragmented world.

She carries this fragmented worldview on her small frame like a slippery skin. She is both celebratory and cerebral, both computerised and human, both compassionate and inhumane. She is everyone and no one. Her appeal relies on both her presence and her evanescence.

Perhaps then, she is actually a post postmodern digital icon that heralds a future that those of us born in the 20th century simply cannot grasp in full.

Post-modern claptrap aside (OK maybe a bit harsh), her music is about as original as red at Christmas time. The great musicians of history are crying into their drink of choice as they watch from the heavens, or more likely from hell.

Brent

This old pale male thinks she follows T.S. Eliot exactly when he said: ‘ Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal’ Gaga does not imitate she just steals but in a 21st digital way that attracts (or if you wish repells) everyone. Truly a lady for all seasons or for none. “Perhaps then, she is actually a post postmodern digital icon that heralds a future that those of us born in the 20th century simply cannot grasp in full.” just history repeating itself, been going on for thousands of years, nothing new. Wish you could read what ‘society’ said about Elvis or the Beatles/Rolling Stones etc etc

Brent

GREG LANDMAN

The name is Monroe–Marilyn Monroe. Tsk Tsk.

The Creator

Can she sing? I gather she can dance a little and has a good publicist.

When comparing her with Freddie Mercury, do we really believe that in 2049 there will still be people listening to Gaga’s music as there are today people still listening to Queen?

If not, then presumably Gaga is a media construct, which helps to explain why this is such a dull, unimaginative and uninformative article. Follow the money where the sun never shines.

Max

Wonderful article! Thank you!

“The Creator” you clearly don’t know enough about art or lady Gaga to comment intelligently. You might change your opinion of Gaga if you look into one of her primary sources and inspirations, Marina Abramović:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVY4Whayw0s
Abramovich is well known for her body art and performances including one called communist body/fascist body. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20iPqDhjpA0 Mindblowing stuff.

It’s way too easy and simplistic to reduce Gaga to money. She is also about FREEDOM and exploring what it means to be free as well as many other things. Unlike most pop stars she gets youngsters thinking beyond the entertainment, glamour and money.

http://www.mediaforjustice.net/ Midnight

@the creator: a lot of the analysis has probably flown passed your head if you’re describing this article as “dull, unimaginative and uninformative”. Or you’re just downright narcissistic.

Yes – in 2049 people will still be listening to Gaga because her message of “being who you are unashamedly” has a timeless appeal.

Potato

Thanks for a good read.

I am no little monster. In fact, the only song I could attribute to the Mother Monster was pokerface when I arrived at the concert.

It was a superbly fascinating spectacle. She was astounding to watch. What surprised me though was after her initial distance, her candid interaction with the audience was refreshing. She went from alien to humourous and self-depracating every-person then segued back to synthetic life form quite magnificently.

I am still not a fan of her music, but it was catchy. I think she has a great voice and her classical music training would make her a super gothy/rock ballad type musician or even just unplugged versions of her pop as she did at the concert.

Music aside, her stage presence and show was awesome. Those costumes were almost like something out of a Cronenberg film or Giger exhibit. Gorgeous!

Marie Nadine Pierre

One love. A very interesting and good post modernist read_ing of Lady Gaga. I am familiar with her, look and image in the popular media though I jave not lisgened to her music at all. All the same, I feel that her biography has been a big influenced on her worrk. She is an Italian American born and raised in NYC and she attended Catholic School. In addition, she was discovered by a transnational Senegalese Americwn and New Yorker, the super mega star ….. I believe all of that should be.bb part of analulysis of her imagery and aetistry. And it would certainly add to a better comprehension of what she, is trying to do. Shes serious and she means it all. One recent act of hers with which I disagree is the fact that during the recent storm that devasted parts of New York and New Jersey, she chose to donate @1million to the Red Cross intead of the Occupy Wall Street movement that was doing better and more work with no budget. So in too many ways and too often she chooses to dispose of the funds that she earns from the masses of impoverished who go to her.concerts and buy her music by sulporting the status quo that oppresses them. So there is a problem with, her pastiche and beicolage. She is the epitone of becareful about what you put together, they might just kkklash. Blessed love.

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Feminist, filmmaker, writer, poet, activist and author, Gillian Schutte has a degree in African politics, an MA in Creative Writing and a Film Director's qualification from the Binger Institute, Netherlands. Winner of the Award of Excellence for her documentary entry to the Society for Visual Anthropology Festival in Washington, 2005, and author of the novel After Just Now -- Schutte fearlessly and creatively tackles issues of race, identity, sexuality and social justice in her multimedia work. She is founding member of Media for Justice co-owner of handHeld Films. and co producer of the online Reality TV series
The Schutte Singiswas'.